musical musings from the frozen north:
torontopia, mont royal city and kawartha kottages

Monday, January 28, 2013

January 2013 reviews

The following
reviews ran in January in the Waterloo Record and Guelph Mercury. Highly
recommended: Petra Haden, Kvety, Lee Harvey Osmond, Bob Wiseman.

Petra Haden - At
the Movies (Anti)

Roomful of Teeth -
s/t (New Amsterdam)

At the Movies is
all about choirs and show tunes, but this is definitely not Glee. Petra Haden
makes a cappella albums by layering her own voice into orchestras and
reinventing the familiar: her last album was an inventive full-length cover of
the album The Who Sell Out—which was arguably as good as the original. Here,
she takes the familiar trope of tackling famous movie theme songs. Occasionally
she dives into campy, novelty territory—how can the James Bond song “Goldfinger”
not be campy?—but more often than not she takes what could be a ridiculous
notion and turns it into something entirely transformational: the theme from
Psycho is actually far more frightening performed entirely by female voices
than by piercing strings.

Haden is mostly
dealing with instrumental material, naturally, but the occasional pop song (“It
Might Be You,” from Tootsie; “This is Not America,” from The Falcon and the
Snowman) sneaks in, as do three key instrumentalists in guest spots: pianist
Brad Mehldau, guitarist Bill Frisell and her father, bassist Charlie Haden. The
one time she strays close to cliché is “Calling You” from Baghdad Cafe, a torch
song staple of the last 25 years. Otherwise, you'd never expect a vocalist to
interpret Trent Reznor's score for The Social Network, or to pick the Superman
theme from John Williams' endless list of anthems--and Haden has the chutzpah
and the talent to reimagine iconic works in her own image.

Roomful of Teeth
are an eight-piece New York City vocal ensemble, in which Petra Haden would fit
right in. The group grew out of a circle of modern classical composers
revolving around the New Amsterdam label, which in turn is a younger
generational offshoot of Bang on a Can, the leading American avant-garde
collective of the last 30 years. Madrigals, Meredith Monk weirdness, Broadway,
Bulgarian harmonies, yodelling, Inuit and Tuvan throat singing--they cover just
about vocal tradition but doo-wop. Though it's often esoteric and edgy, they
can go for grandiosity, like on the enormous chorus with the odd lyric that
goes: “There is no subtlety in death / It’s like a hurricane / it’s like
Farrakhan,” by composer William Brittelle. They also collaborate with Merrill
Garbus of Tuneyards, who they've accompanied live, and who pens two key tracks
here (though she does not appear on them).

Should Petra Haden
hit the road for At the Movies, Roomful of Teeth would be the obvious choice to
be her hired backing band. And I dare your local high school glee club to
tackle anything from either of these records. (Jan. 24)

This Czech band
could never be accused of a one-note shtick. A lot of central and eastern
European rock music can be downright baffling to North American ears; while
Kvety are enchanting and intriguing: alien, yes (Czech is not a poetic language
when sung), but entirely inviting. The male vocalist’s soft delivery helps, as
does the dominant role of violin, but Kvety combine melody, old-world mystery
and unpredictable arrangements in an entirely original blend that begs easy
comparisons: but if pressed, I’d offer Welsh weirdo folk band Gorky’s Zygotic
Minci, early Pink Floyd, Swedish psychedelic jazz-rockers Dungen, Camper Van
Beethoven’s Key Lime Pie and Radiohead’s The Bends. Do those make sense
together? They do here. Considering the incredible 2012 album by Kvety’s
labelmates Dva, where are the articles in the international press about the
Czech music scene? It’s a matter of time.
(Jan. 31)

Download: "Kamosi," "Papousek noci," "My deti ze stanice Bullerbyn"

Lee Harvey Osmond
– The Folk Sinner (Latent)

Tom Wilson, of
Junkhouse and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, has been a mainstay in Canadian
music for more than 20 years—a career, he often jokes, that has earned him
“tens of dollars” over that time. And yet ever since he reinvented himself as
Lee Harvey Osmond in 2009, it sounds like he’s just hitting his stride now.
This is where he teams up with the Cowboy Junkies’ Michael Timmins, and
together they set Wilson’s haunting baritone and bluesy songs to spare and
spooky goth-folk arrangements centred around chugging, droning guitars and a
healthy dose of rockabilly reverb.

Guest stars lend a
hand: Hawksley Workman’s lovely falsetto on “Break Your Body,” a duet with Oh Susanna on “Big Chief,” the haunting harmonica of
Paul Reddick, and the unmistakable harmony presence of Margo Timmins. As
producer, Michael Timmins is careful never to crowd a song: all extraneous
elements—and plenty of excellent electric guitars, courtesy of Colin Cripps,
Colin Linden and Timmins—hover around the atmosphere, leaving the focus on the
spare rhythms and Wilson’s commanding, though subtle, presence.

It’s Canadiana
cottage-country weirdness at its finest, as well as a fine album by two guys
who’ve wanted to be wise, old ragged veterans ever since they were 25 years
old. Now that they are, they have even more to offer than they did in their
supposed prime. It’s far too early to begin compiling a best of 2013 list, but TheFolk Sinner is a good start. (Jan. 17)

Download: “Devil’s Load,” “Oh Linda,” “Honey Runnin’”

The Liminanas –
Crystal Anis (Hozac)

The Velvet
Underground’s debut album and a collection of Serge Gainsbourg’s ’60s hits: two
albums that every member of this Parisian band probably had in common growing
up. Fuzzy garage-rock guitars, primitive drums, whispered vocals, reedy organs
and minor-key menace flip the usually sunny French yé-yé sound on its head, and
wouldn’t sound out of place in an early Godard movie featuring reckless boho
youth who worship American fashion driving through the Left Bank. It’s a bit of
a one-note shtick, but that one note sounds fabulous. (Jan. 31)

Download: “Longanisse,”
“Belmondo,” “Betty and Johnny”

Minotaurs – New
Believers (Static Clang)

The last time we
heard from Guelph songwriter and drummer Nathan Lawr, he had abandoned his
singer/songwriter mode to embrace Afrobeat influences; here, on his second
album leading a project called Minotaurs, he returns with much of the same
band—featuring King Cobb Steelie bassist Kevin Lynn, Toronto’s most valuable
saxophone player Jeremy Strachan, pianist Shaw-Han Liem—and vocalists Casey
Mecija (Ohbijou) and Sarah Harmer, plus a full horn section and producer Paul
Aucoin at the helm. If the first Minotaurs album boasted only a few tracks that
burst with Lawr’s new-found confidence in this new territory, here he fully
inhabits the swagger necessary to pull this off, and his band—in particular the
horn section and the percussionists (Lawr, Aucoin and Jay Anderson)—is firing
on all cylinders. The only time he stumbles is when the tempo slows down, on
the closing “Windchimes in the Evening”—which is odd for a guy whose solo
career started out as a balladeer. Otherwise, he’s got his calling card for
summer festival season ready to roll. (Jan. 24)

As an electronic
musician, you can spend your whole life working on new patches for your
keyboards or ways to manipulate found-sound samples.

Or you could just
hire the bell carillon player for Oslo City Hall—who plays a three-tonne
instrument with over 60 bronze bells—and collaborate with a local composer and
Norwegian jazz players on tubular
bells, marimba, xylophone, cymbals and more, while you work subtle
manipulations and place subdued beats beneath it all.

Yes, there are
moments on Elements of Light
when you feel like Quasimodo has taken over a rave in the town square of a
small European town. But Pantha du Prince, the German producer whose 2010 album
Black Light is one of the
finest electronic albums of the past five years, moves this far beyond an
aesthetic gimmick and creates one of the few convincing compositions to bring
the influence of Steve Reich and Moondog to modern electronic dance music—even
if you’re unlikely to hear these tracks in an actual club, as Elements of Light is a much more
rewarding headphone experience than anything else. (Jan. 17)

For much
of the last 15 years, singer/songwriter Bob Wiseman has been working on film
and theatre projects, while his solo albums—which, in the ’90s, were wildly
eclectic Toronto all-star affairs that contained some of the most inventive and
politically provocative music of the era—became withdrawn, solitary and
somewhat humourless. For whatever reason, Wiseman has let the world back in to
his songs: not just in the studio, where he once again corrals his ideal
harmony vocalist Mary Margaret O’Hara and others, but in his songs. As the
obtuse title suggests, this is a collection of character sketches, with songs
about Fellini’s wife, former Haitian presidents, Neil Young and RCMP tasering
victims.

Wiseman
is the rare political songwriter who, at his best, can write extremely
specific, name-calling songs, and have them stand the test of time--as songs
from his first two proper solo albums, about government plots against native
activists and Greenpeace campaigners, have done so well. Here, he's back in
that mode, most successfully skewering anti-science conservative ideology in “The
Reform Party at Burning Man,” where he gets Serena Ryder to do a powerful rap
in the middle, notes with a sinister scowl about suppression of governmental information
that "what's especially
perverse is that this all feels rehearsed," and concludes the song by
repeating: “We didn't vote so / you could make a joke out / of people that are
broke.”

He's not
all piss and vinegar—far from it. What makes this return to form so enjoyable
is Wiseman's playful musicality, his skittery keyboards, his '50s-inspired
vocal arrangements, the inspired drumming of Mark Hundevad and the spot-on
saxophones of Shuffle Demon Richard Underhill. A touching ode to Wiseman's late
friend, actress Tracy Wright, is disguised in a song about a distrusted mutual
friend set to a “Whiter Shade of Pale” chord progression. The title track is
one of Wiseman's loveliest melodies ever, and “Neil Young at the Junos” is, for
Wiseman, an oddly reverent
song about a mainstream icon.

Together with the
recent success of his solo autobiographical theatrical piece, Actionable, this
is a welcome reminder of Wiseman's songwriting legacy, and proof that his best
work is far from behind him. (Jan.
31)

Download: “mothface@yahoo.com,”
“The Reform Party at Burning Man,” “Aristide at the Press Conference”

Yo La Tengo - Fade (Matador)

When Yo La Tengo
was the subject of a biography last year, many people—starting with the band members
themselves—wondered how such an artistically consistent, mild-mannered group
could possibly provide a compelling narrative for a book. Indeed, the author
instead used Yo La Tengo’s career as a way to explore the ebbs and flows of
alternative music in general in the last 25 years.

And so what does
one say about Yo La Tengo’s new album, their 13th proper
record, which is interchangeable with any of their albums from the last 15
years? Not that their well is dry: from the outset, this musically insatiable
trio have drawn from dream pop, country, R&B, free jazz, hardcore punk,
funk, ambient, squalls of feedback, avant-garde soundtracks and just about
everything else, all filtered through their generally soft-spoken, reverent
personas.

Yo La Tengo rarely
makes a wrong move, but much of Fade
sounds like the band on lithium: there is no standout track, the likes of which
even their weakest album can be counted on to provide; there is little
variation in tempo; and even the quietest moments (with the exception of the
stunning "Cornelia and Jane") often sound limp rather than softly powerful, which
is normally Yo La Tengo’s forte. Maybe it’s the introduction of producer John
McEntire (Tortoise), which marks the first time in 20 years the band has not
worked with longtime collaborator Roger Moutenot; maybe Moutenot brought more
to Yo La Tengo than anyone realized until now. (Jan. 17)